The Times of London to Test 'Macro Payments' for Occasional Readers

By Tom Whitfield

The Times of London will begin testing "macro payments" within the next couple of months, aiming to sell specific products such as its annual guides to readers who will never buy a full subscription. The publisher has roughly 680,000 digital subscribers behind a hard paywall.

Director of subscriptions Abs Ahmed laid out the concept on stage at a Digiday event. He coined the term "macro payments" in New York while meeting with News Corp business units. Micropayments charge readers a small amount per article. Macro payments instead sell something specific, like one of the Times' annual guides, at the moment a reader wants it.

Ahmed described the work as "creating and identifying moments of value and moments of need, and monetizing that." Where the Times can hold its own, he wants it to "effectively be able to charge a premium." The exact shape of that premium remains undecided. "There's no ready-made solution," Ahmed said.

Where will the tests start?

The Times' annual guides, such as the rich list and best places, are where Ahmed sees the opening. "These are things that hold intrinsic value for those audiences," he said. "People turn up for them" but "they don't want a subscription. That's not what they're after. They're after that package."

The U.K. looks like the first market, though Ahmed said nothing is confirmed. The publisher has scale there and is a primary read for much of its audience. The payment mechanism is still open, with the Times weighing a day pass against a week-long option.

The publisher has firm data on who these readers are. Its research found a significant occasional audience, and "over three quarters" of those people "would find a kind of flexible access more appealing to them," Ahmed said. These readers are "not cannibalizing what otherwise would have come through the door." In the best case, he said, they "become a loyal Times subscriber and stay with us for years and years."

Football fans should not expect disaggregated club coverage. Asked whether a Liverpool FC fan could buy that coverage alone, Ahmed said "it's not disaggregating content."

Why not micropayments?

The Times has examined micropayments in different forms over the last 10 years, and "it's never really landed that well," Ahmed said. Other publishers are finding success with the model, he acknowledged, "but for us, it's not." His explanation was blunt: "It's like having people come through your door and read and consume content with a taxi meter going on." Readers under that model feel they need to "self moderate," and the Times wants them engaged.

Whatever it tests must answer to the existing subscription business. Ahmed said there is always a financial consideration around the subscription model when the publisher tries a new concept. More than 50% of web traffic is now bots and crawlers, he said, while social and search referrals have thinned. He does not expect them to return. Shifts in consumer behavior and regulation are also squeezing subscription businesses.

Abi Watson at Enders Analysis said publishers have long sought a smaller payment unit that captures willingness to pay without a full subscription, but must "thread the needle" between converting new payers and avoiding cannibalizing their base. "The Times, in particular, has traditionally maintained a hard paywall," she said. "Charging for, say, annual guides, is consistent with that strategy."

What is AI already doing for subscriptions?

The subscriptions team has AI results to show. Synthetic audiences have let the Times produce 10 times as much research, which Ahmed said helped the team move faster. AI decisioning tools that serve the right email or in-product message at the right time have delivered "multiple increases in conversion, particularly around our lapsed audiences." In performance marketing, a tool called Smartly has cut cost per acquisition by more than 55%.

Team boundaries are blurring as a result. Ahmed said the Times wants people working beyond their current remits so experiment ideas don't stall. News Corp's global policies shape how teams use AI, and the Times sticks to them.

The publisher also plans to meet audiences where they already are: more short-form video fronted by its talent, newsletters on Substack, and growing events, then bring those readers back to its own properties. It is targeting multi-platform audiences that are younger, skew slightly more female and don't tend to hold long-term subscriptions, with work already done in sport, fashion and luxury. "Younger" is relative for a paper this established. Ahmed put it at about 35 to 45 years old: "I'm not going to presume that we're going to have 18, 19-year-olds come through the door tomorrow."

The takeaway in plain words: the Times is betting that packaged products sold at moments of need can grow revenue without touching the subscription engine that sustains it.